Page 10 of The Year of Us: July

“One, it’s a business expense. Two, my commission isn’t going to suck.”

I decided then and there that I liked Zane. Maybe after the business portion of our relationship was over, we could move onto being friends. We stood at the same time and Zane shook my hand again.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Cory. Thanks for reaching out.”

“Thank you for squeezing me into your schedule on such short notice.”

I only had a few days before I had to get back to work on the Los Angeles project, and I hoped to spend as much time with Reese as I could before then. With that in mind, I pulled my phone out and shot off a text asking where he was and if he and Morgan would mind terribly if I joined them.

CHAPTER 8

Reese

We’d beenat lunch for an hour, and Morgan had never looked more pleased with herself. She had apparently stolen my phone, wrote down Cory’s phone number, then texted him behind my back to complain about how miserable I was after he went back to New York. She swore he had already been wanting to come back to LA before she planted the idea in his head, but with a friend like her, I couldn’t be sure.

“It’s better this way,” she said, smiling at me over the rim of her half-empty espresso martini. “He’s here and you’re smiling, and all is well.”

“He wants to move,” I said.

“Good.” She rolled her eyes at me like it was common sense. “You can’t leave LA and he can afford it.”

Morgan reached across the table and tapped her finger against the face of Cory’s Rolex. Or was it my Rolex? It was definitely his hoodie, but I wasn’t sure I felt right laying claim on a watch that cost more than my car.

“Is this normal, though?” I asked her.

“For two people to fall in love and want to be together?”

“For someone to be willing to uproot their whole life and move across the country for someone else,” I corrected.

“He loves you a lot and you love him, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then it’s very normal, and it’s better than him paying for you to move out there because if he took you away from me, he’d have to pay for me to come out there too, and I’m expensive.”

“He could afford it, I think,” I said warily.

“I’m sure he could.” She finished her martini, eyes searching the restaurant behind me for the waitress. “But he seems like he likes to make things easy for himself.”

“I’d hardly call myself easy,” I grumbled.

She must have caught the attention of the waitress, because a smile spread across her face and she lifted her glass in the air, mouthing the words,espresso martiniin her direction.

“Are you hung up about the submission shit still?” she asked me.

“Not as much as before,” I said, “and not as much as I should be.”

Morgan leaned back and rolled her eyes at me. Again. “Why should you be?”

“Because it’s who I am, Morgan,” I reminded her, but even as I tapped my hand against my chest, Cory’s watch rattled around my wrist with more weight than a collar could ever carry.

“Wrong. You’re Reese Rollins and you’re my best friend, and you’re that man’s boyfriend—and none of those things hinge on whether you get on your knees or not.”

“Who’s on their knees?” a familiar voice rumbled from beside me, and I looked up in time to watch Cory set a fresh espresso martini in front of Morgan’s empty glass.

“Reese,” she answered.

Cory angled his head to the side, face scrunched up in dramatized thought. “I think I’ve probably spent more time onmy knees than he has, but he does look lovely from that angle. Mind if I join you?”